A throwback attack

Joy was getting ready to give her talk when she noticed how the audience lacked the essence of the title written in bold behind her on-screen“How life eventually became a joyful experience after all the hardships “. Her mum couldn’t make it to the event because she was so sick, her elder brother had traveled to Japan two days ago for his master’s degree, her dad and grandparents had passed away and there she was standing strong because of those people who had given her enough confidence to roll the dice again for life and restored her faith after being diagnosed with Alzheimer.

Her caregiver, younger sister and two of her friends showed up. Joy was just about to speak her first words when it hit her if this talk would really feel like a heart to heart speech or more of a truth and just leave. She now no longer represents her name “Joy” ! So she decided out of her soul to talk about exactly how she felt at this moment.

She knew that having Alzheimer doesn’t make it any piece of cake talking out of your soul! She would probably buffer many times before gathering the right words to say out loud-which recently happened three times during a normal conversation- That’s why she wrote the whole thing down earlier before coming. However, since she now knew that she wouldn’t use any of them, she tore the paper down into bits and pieces, throwing away what seemed like lies to her.

She collected herself, and almost gave her best speech starting with: “My name is Joy and ironically, I now miss Joy in my life, I know this has nothing to do with the title behind me but I am really sorry, for I need to be honest with you.”. Unfortunately, some people at this very moment started walking away which gave her a sense of uncertainty and welled her eyes with tears, yet she managed to hold them back and decided to move on.

Continuing with what she felt like some sort of healing, sensing back this true human interactions she proceeded with how her life was happy being a healthy young girl with her dad, mum, and grandparents mentioning some life events to show how kind they all were and trying to add a sense of humor by imitating their voices as she ran from a line to another.

As she kept talking, you could easily tell from her voice, face, and gestures how the poor girl was in a desperate need of their presence now, It was more like a movie lacking the actual characters with her trying to be the survival. She gave vivid images of how throughout her depression phase, these people were the ones who gave her a reason to never give up. She was about to describe the day they all knew of her disease, a day she’d rather forget. And ironically enough, she did.

And now you might wonder; how is it possible with all the love and support I had, that I was even prone to sadness? In fact, sadness came in the form of a….”.

There were so many curious looks now spanning the hall between the audience when to their surprise, she just smiled with the feeling that those sad times might be buried forever, leaving her with all the memories she happens to remember.

After her attempt trying so hard to remember what to say she failed, and the hall went silent for two minutes.Her caregiver interrupted, giving her some kind of a pill and while everyone was trying to figure out who was this person and what he was doing, he said: “Give the girl a break, she is sick” And there, the curtains closed.